The sleek, diminutive Fujitsu Lifebook P5020 is one of the most feature-rich laptops in the sub-notebook market. If you prize the portability and uniqueness of a sub-notebook laptop but have hesitated to give up on features, the 3.7lb Lifebook P5020 might be what you are looking for. It is a tiny laptop that still packs in Wi-Fi, a CDRW/DVD combo drive and five hours of battery life. Priced starting at $1,549, this is one laptop built for the road, similar to the Sony VAIO TR2A.
The fact that the P5000 series has been able to fit a CD-RW/DVD drive, 2 USB ports, Firewire, CompactFlash, SD/MemoryStick slots, and an impressive five hour battery all in a laptop not much larger than a hardcover book is no small feat (see more in Specs). And indeed when first shown to some fellow technophiles it was easy to see the awe in their faces. Perhaps just as predictably, the awe was also quickly followed by skepticism that something as small as the P5020 is usable.
There is no surprise this little laptop is often greeted with a little wariness. The laptop market is going through a stratification that bears close resemblance to what has happened to the automobile industry. Just as car companies create ever-larger SUVs trying to recreate the safety, comfort, and amenities they find while they are at home, laptop owners have been entranced by ever-larger widescreen laptops such as the Apple Powerbooks and Dell Inspiron 8600.
Although the P5020 has a screen built more for travel than everyday use, it is hard not to be a little smug with a gadget crowd defensively clutching their Humvee-sized widescreen laptops to their chests. As long as you use an external monitor for everyday use, the P5000 makes for a nearly perfect companion on the road. With a 1GHz processor that feels even better than it scores (see Performance) and better battery life than the Inspiron 8600, this tiny little laptop packs a lot of punch.
The sub notebook comes of age
Sub notebooks have a long history in Japan, where Fujitsu has built a sizeable reputation in the laptop market. With the exception of Sony, there has been little success for sub-notebooks in the U.S. market due to the taste for ever-larger laptops. It didn't help that the first generation of sub-notebooks, dominated by the Toshiba Libretto and Sony Picturebook, sacrificed a lot of usability in the name of portability. Typically these laptops required plenty of compromises: no CD-Rom, small, low resolution screens, cramped keyboards with little travel, and horrible battery life. A laptop is hardly portable if it barely lasts an hour away from a plug, or if it needs an octopus-like arrangement of port replicators and external drives to be useful.
A few years ago Fujitsu changed the sub-notebook game with the versatile Fujitsu Loox-T. The first sub notebook with a built in CD/DVD drive, the Loox also included a high-res widescreen aspect ratio and a lithium polymer battery for six to eight hours of battery life. The Loox was a massive success in Japan and was eventually brought to the States as the Lifebook-P2000. Although it had some first-generation flaws such as the lack of a VGA-out port, it was truly the first road-worthy sub notebook.
If you've seen the Sony VAIO TR1A then you've experienced the direct lineage of that first Look. In fact the VAIO TR2A matches the P5010 specifications almost identically, and thanks to Sony's brand power has received much more acclaim. But by having slightly better battery life, more removeable media options, and better price, the Fujitsu Lifebook P5020 manages to stay ahead of the game.
Specs
| Basic Information | |
 Description: | Lifebook P5020D (1Ghz Pentium M, 256MB, 40GB, CDRW/DVD, Win XP, 10.6" TFT) |
| Manufacturer: | Fujitsu |
| Lowest Price: | $1699.00 |
| User Rating: | Not Rated |
| Detailed Specifications | |
| Operating System: | Microsoft Windows XP |
| Included Devices: | AC Adapter |
| Battery Life: | 6 hour(s) |
| Included Network Card: | Ethernet (10/100 Mbps) |
| Input Devices: | Keyboard, Touchpad |
| Interface Type: | IEEE 1394 - 4 pin Unpowered, Serial - RJ11 Modular (Phone/Telco), Video - 15 pin High-Density D-shell (VGA), Video - 4 pin mini-DIN (S-Video) |
| Resolution: | 1024 x 768 (XGA), 800 x 600 (SVGA) |
| Display Size: | 10.6 in |
| Display Type: | Active Matrix LCD (TFT) |
| Video Bus: | AGP (Version Unspecified) |
| Video Integration: | Motherboard |
| Sound Support: | 3D Audio |
| Drive Controllers: | IDE (ATA/EIDE/ATAPI) |
| Hard Drive Capacity: | 40 GB |
| Included Drives: | DVD/CD-RW Combo, Hard Drive |
| Cache Size: | 256 kB |
| Installed Memory: | 256 MB |
| Maximum Memory: | 1 GB |
| Memory Technology: | DDR-SDRAM (DDRRAM) |
| Shared Video Memory: | 64 MB |
| Slots: | Type I CardBus, Type II CardBus |
| Processor Class: | Intel Pentium M Processor |
| Processor Speed: | 1 GHz |
| System Chipset: | Intel 855GM |
| Dimensions | |
| Height: | 1.55 in |
| Width: | 10.27 in |
| Depth: | 7.8 in |
| Reference | |
| Warranty Information: | One year limited warranty |
| URL: | Manufacturer Link |
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